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Pope Francis: Message to Social Week for Italian Catholics

12/09/2013

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Thursday sent a message for the participants of the
47th Social Week for Italian Catholics, which will be held from September 12 - 15
in Turin, on the theme: “The Family: Hope and Future for Italian Society”.

In
his message, Pope Francis reminded the participants that for the Christian community,
the family is much more than a “theme”, but it “is life, the daily fabric, a path
for generations through which is transmitted the faith, along with love and with fundamental
moral values; [the family] is concrete solidarity, hard work, patience, and also a
project, a hope, a future. All of this - which the Christian community lives in the
light of faith, hope and charity - it has never kept to herself , but every day it
becomes leaven in the dough of society , for the greater common good.”

The
Pope said the future of society is rooted in the elderly and young people.

“The
latter, because they have the strength and are of the age to be able to bring the
story forward,” he explained. “The former, because they are the living memory. A
people that does not take of its elderly and children and youth has no future, because
it abuses both its memory and its promise.”

Pope Francis said the Church offers
a concept of the family rooted in the Book of Genesis, which is based on the complementariness
between men and women, and the fertility of this union.

“We want to reaffirm
that the family understood in this way is still the first and foremost subject for
the building of society and the measure of an economy on a human scale, and as such
deserves to be actively supported,” the Pope said, pointing out the demographic problems
facing Europe.

“We cannot ignore the suffering of many families due to lack
of work, housing problems, the practical impossibility of freely implementing their
own educational choices,” added Pope Francis. Families “are also suffering due to
internal conflicts in these same families; the marital and familial failings which
are experienced; and the violence that also unfortunately lurks and does damage inside
our homes. To all of these, we need and want to be particularly close, with respect
and a true sense of brotherhood and solidarity.”

However, Pope Francis said
we cannot ignore the other end of the spectrum: those who through a “simple, but beautiful
and courageous, witness” live the experience of marriage and parenthood with joy,
“enlightened and sustained by the grace of the Lord, without fear of facing the moments
of the cross, lived in union with [the cross] of the Lord, which do not stop the path
of love, but rather make it stronger and more complete.”